Marcella Hazan, noted cookbook author and proponent of Italian cooking.
Archive for September, 2013
Obit watch: September 30, 2013.
Monday, September 30th, 2013Your loser update: week 4, 2013.
Sunday, September 29th, 2013NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Pittsburgh
Jacksonville
NY Giants
Tampa Bay
And Cleveland has won two games in a row, which foils my plan to offer them Matt Schaub for next year’s first round draft pick.
In other news, the Astros played their last game of the season this afternoon, took the Yankees to 14 innings…and lost, 5-1. Houston finishes at 51-111, with a .315 winning percentage and having lost the last 15 games in a row.
Consumer advisory: iTunes 11.1
Sunday, September 29th, 2013If you have not updated to iTunes 11.1 yet, don’t.
This is a screen snapshot from my iTunes 11.1 of one of the podcasts I listen to, the Accidental Tech Podcast. Click to embiggen.
In spite of what you see in the “Plays” column, I have actually listened to every episode of ATP. I delete podcasts from iTunes as I listen to them.
When I “upgraded” to 11.1, all of these podcasts I had already listened to, and deleted from iTunes, popped back in with that little “cloud” icon under the “Unplayed” column. Apparently, Apple wants me to know that these podcasts are available in “the cloud”.
That’s great, Apple, but if I want to find an episode I’ve missed, I can go to the podcast’s page in iTunes, or to the podcast’s website. How do I turn off the display of podcasts in “the cloud”?
Surprise! According to everything I’ve been able to find on Apple’s support sites, you can’t. You can’t delete them from iTunes. You can’t get rid of them. The “Show iTunes purchases in the cloud” option does nothing for podcasts.
You can use the “My Podcasts” view to show just the podcasts you’ve downloaded and not deleted, without the “cloud” podcasts. But I have sound reasons for preferring the “List” view over “My Podcasts” – “List” shows you more information and less graphics.
Bad job, Apple. May the person who decided on this develop a case of painful rectal itch.
You’re (not) watching CSN.
Sunday, September 29th, 2013Longer story from the HouChron about the Comcast SportsNet Houston dispute I touched on yesterday.
As best as I can tell, here’s the deal:
- CSN Houston is run by a four member board. Two members represent Comcast/NBCU, one represents the Astros, and one represents the Houston Rockets (who are also carried on CSN Houston).
- The board has to agree unanimously on any carriage agreement or retransmission deal.
- The board doesn’t agree.
-
- As long as the board doesn’t agree, they can’t make carriage agreements.
- Or, apparently, pay their bills. CSN Houston admits they owe the Astros three months of broadcast fees.
- Thus, the involuntary Chapter 11 petition.
Memos from the Sports Desk.
Sunday, September 29th, 2013It is kind of early for a Sunday morning – I haven’t had breakfast yet, or even coffee – but I wanted to get these up before I wandered out in the rain (Yes! Actual rain!) in search of both.
Lane Kiffin out as USC football coach. USC lost 62-41 to Arizona State yesterday; if other reports are to be believed, Kiffin was fired before the plane even got back to LA.
Kiffin was 28-15 overall. So far this year, the team is 3-2 and 0-2 in conference.
And the Astros have hit the 110 loss mark with one game left in the season. Right now, the team is at .317. .300 is sort of the bar for Wikipedia’s “List of worst Major League Baseball season records”, so the 2013 Astros won’t make that list. But I do still find this achievement refreshing.
Your Houston Astros, ladies and gentlemen.
Saturday, September 28th, 2013But wait, it gets better!
Comcast SportsNet Houston, the cable network that carries the Astros games – the cable network that recorded a 0.0 Nielsen rating for last Sunday’s Astros game – is in a nasty dispute with various affiliates and with the Astros. According to the HouChron, CSN hasn’t paid rights fees to the Astros for the past five months three months. (Edited to add 9/29: I swear the article said “five months” when I read it Saturday morning, but everyone says “three months” now. I’m not sure if the HouChron got it wrong and corrected it, or if I misread the article originally.) The affiliates are unhappy because they believe “structural issues” are keeping CSN from expanding.
And thus, the Comcast/NBC Universal affiliates have filed an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition against CSN, apparently in an attempt to address these “structural issues”.
It just hasn’t been a good year for the Astros. Good thing I didn’t bet on them to win the World Series.
The Night They Drove Old Tosca Down…
Friday, September 27th, 2013Barring a miracle, it appears the New York City Opera will file for bankruptcy next week and begin winding down operations.
The NYCO has been trying to raise $7 million before the end of September. So far, according to the NYT, they’ve managed to raise $1.5 million. They even have a Kickstarter: the goal is $1 million, but they’ve raised $194,549 (at this writing) with three days to go.
How did they get to this point? And how can New York City not be able to support two major opera companies?
The company cut back from “115 performances of 17 different operas” a decade ago to “16 performances of 4 operas” last year. The smaller number of performances has, in turn, resulted in a smaller number of patrons, and a smaller number of potential donors.
Apparently, the NYCO was in Lincoln Center up until 2011; then they moved out, and are now “an itinerant troupe at theaters across the city”. This may also have something to do with their problems. (I was confused about why NYCO was in Lincoln Center if the NYST was their home; if I understand Wikipedia correctly, NYST is actually part of Lincoln Center.)
And because they raided the endowment, the annual income from that source is now less than $200,000 a year – “less than City Opera makes from its Thrift Shop on East 23rd Street in Manhattan”. (If you try going to the Thrift Shop website, you’re confronted with an uncloseable fundraising appeal that completely obscures the rest of the content. Oh, wait; I hit the back button a couple of times and managed to close the fundraising appeal. Would you like to buy a piano? That’s a trick question: nobody wants to buy a piano.)
(O.M.G. Okay, I have to purchase this. If only as a gift.)
The back and forth in the NYT comments section is interesting, to the extent that any web comments section is interesting. Some folks complain about the unwillingness of the wealthy to step up and bail out the opera, others complain that of course the opera is failing because they present crap like “Anna Nicole” (while others point out that “Anna Nicole” is a critically acclaimed modern opera), and there’s a lot of blame for the management and board of NYCO.
There’s not really much more I can say about this, though I do find it interesting. I would be sad to see an opera company close down, in much the same way I’d be sad if a local restaurant that I liked closed their doors. On the other hand, it seems like the closure is the result of ten years of poor decision making, and there’s nobody to blame but NYCO itself.
You spin me right round baby right round…
Thursday, September 26th, 2013The Astros have broken their team record, and are now at 108 losses.
The team is off tonight, and starts their final series against the Yankees on Friday. Remember, the Astros have to win 2 out of 3 in order to avoid 110 losses.
And by the way, the Yankees won’t be playing in the post-season. I note this here just because it will make this guy unhappy.
And as the sun sinks slowly in the AL West…
Wednesday, September 25th, 2013…the Astros have tied the franchise record of 107 losses.
There are four games left, so the team has to go .500 to avoid the magic 110 loss mark. The Astros play at the Rangers tonight, then play the Yankees at home for the final three games. Cool Standings is projecting 109.5 losses; I’m thinking the Astros should at least break their loss record, and 110 losses is definitely in play.
Updates from the legal blotter.
Wednesday, September 25th, 2013I wrote previously about the case of Charles Malouff, a former cop convicted of illegally possessing “destructive devices” and who was supposedly facing life in prison after being charged with fraud. (The fraud case was related to federal grants for a wind farm near Austin.)
Malouff was convicted on the fraud charges, and has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. That sentence will run concurrently with his sentence on the other charges.
Judge Ken Anderson has resigned. You may remember former Judge Anderson as former Williamson County prosecutor Ken Anderson. You may also remember former prosecutor Anderson as the guy who wrongfully sent Michael Morton to prison for 25 years, and is now facing charges of concealing evidence that would have established Morton’s innocence at the time. More from Grits for Breakfast.
Art, damn it, art! watch. (#41 in a series)
Wednesday, September 25th, 2013There is a Spanish architect named Santiago Calatrava. Mr. Calatrava is apparently something of a big deal in Spain, and has designed a new PATH station in Lower Manhattan.
One of his big projects was the “City of Arts and Sciences” in a “dried-up riverbed” in Valencia:
Sounds pretty cool, right?
- The City of Arts and Sciences was originally budgeted at 300 million euros. So far, it has cost three times that.
- There are problems with some of the buildings. The opera house has 150 seats with obstructed views (though the NYT doesn’t give a figure for the total number of seats). The science museum was “initially built without fire escapes or elevators for the disabled”.
- Problems with Mr. Calatrava’s designs aren’t limited to Valencia.
- “In Bilbao he designed a footbridge with a glass tile surface that allowed it to be lighted from below, keeping its sweeping arches free of lampposts. But in a city that gets a lot of rain and occasional snow, pedestrians keep falling on the slippery surface. City officials say some 50 citizens have injured themselves, sometimes breaking legs or hips, on the bridge since it opened in 1997, and the glass bricks frequently crack and need to be replaced. Two years ago the city resorted to laying a huge black rubber carpet across the bridge.”
- Mr. Calatrava designed an airport terminal in Bilbao. He designed it without an arrival hall. “Passengers moved through the customs and baggage area directly to the sidewalk where they had to wait in the cold. The airport authorities have since installed a glass wall to shelter them.”
- Mr. Calatrava and his organization have been ordered to pay $4.5 million to settle a dispute over a conference center in Oviedo. The conference center collapsed.
- A winery is suing Mr. Calatrava over a leaky roof. (Frank Lloyd Wright, call your office, please.)
- Mr. Calatrava is being sued over cost overruns and repairs to the Ponte della Costituzione in Venice, a footbridge over the Grand Canal.
- The skin of the opera house is buckling.
Mr. Calatrava was unavailable for an interview by the paper of record. However:
I’m as anti-communist as the next guy (unless the next guy is Lawrence, who makes me look squishy). But when you are blaming roof leaks on the Communists, I think it is time to sit down and re-evaluate your designs, and how you got to this point in your life.
TMQ Watch: September 24, 2013.
Tuesday, September 24th, 2013Random notes: September 24, 2013.
Tuesday, September 24th, 2013Paul Bergrin is going to spend the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole. Unless his conviction is overturned, or his sentence is reduced on appeal. (Previously on WCD.)
According to the HouChron and Nielsen, nobody in the Houston area watched the Astros game against Cleveland on Sunday. (Of course, that game was on opposite the Texans game, the Astros are getting closer to 110 losses this season, and there’s some margin for error in Nielsen’s calculations.)
While I was digging out the Bergrin posts, I stumbled across this old post about Hot Wheels, Legos, and imaginative play. The discussion of Legos, and their emphasis on pre-packaged sets tied to pop culture events, reminded me of something I saw over the weekend: LEGO Lone Ranger sets
Your loser update: week 3, 2013.
Monday, September 23rd, 2013NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Pittsburgh
Jacksonville
Washington
NY Giants
Minnesota
Tampa Bay
Notably absent from this list: Cleveland.
I don’t pay that much attention to sports news during the week. I check FARK’s sports tab, but that’s about it. (Well, and TMQ in season, but I’m not sure I consider that “news”.) So the first I heard about the Richardson trade was a text message from one of my relatives in Cleveland, who was absolutely apoplectic to the point where they planned to sell off their season tickets. They (and I) were convinced that the Browns were tanking the season, again; everyone expected this to be their year, or at least for them to do something decent. Heck, I think folks would be happy with 8-8; that would at least show some improvement. And trading your first round draft pick after just a year? That’s crazy as a soup sandwich.
Or is it? When FARK got around to posting their thread, I read through it. And there are actually some good arguments in the other direction. CavalierEternal’s comment early in the thread specifically made me rethink my position; his argument is that Richardson didn’t do that well last year, is injury prone, shows “major signs of being a bust”, and trading him now while they could still get value for him was the best thing the Browns could have done.
So who’s right? I don’t know, but the Browns won yesterday. Quarterback change? The Richardson trade put the fear of God into the remaining players? Or, conversely, the remaining players are putting in maximum effort, hoping to get traded out of this chicken-(stuff) outfit?
Or are the Browns so inept, they can’t even suck for first pick in the draft correctly?
Answers to Tam (Gratuitous Gun Porn)
Sunday, September 22nd, 2013Tam posted hers, so I figured I’d respond by posting mine. Though mine’s not quite as pretty, and she’s a better photographer.
My records show I bought this on my birthday in 2006. (I know I was working at The Other Place when I did buy it. I also know Tam was still working at Coal Creek Armory, because I emailed them looking for Safariland .41 Magnum speedloaders, and she responded.)
It was picked up used at McBrides for $417 (including tax). I figured it would make a nice home defense gun; if you can’t stop a rampaging home with six rounds of .41 Magnum, you should at least be able to fight your way to your elephant gun and put a couple of rounds of .460 Weatherby through the bay windows.
(Yes, I will be here all week. Try the veal, and remember to tip your waitress.)
Anyway, I got the gun home, picked up a box of remanufactured .41 Mag at the next gun show, and took it to the range. Can’t have a home defense gun you haven’t shot, can you?
I set up at the bay, took aim, and…
(click)
(click)
(click click click)
(click click click click click click)
(click)
Capstick mode.[1] Sigh. My friend Karl recommended a good gunsmith, and $125 later, I had a gun that would go “Bang!” instead of “Click!”. As I recall, the cylinder timing was a bit off, and my smith said the previous owner had apparently trimmed a spring to make the trigger pull lighter. It probably would have gone “Bang!” with factory .41 Mag ammo, but the remanufactured stuff had harder primers…
Even at $500+ all in, I’m still pretty fond of this gun. If I had to hike in bear country, this would be the sidearm I’d take. It doesn’t have a lot of collector value, thanks to the refinish (the barrel was also cut down from 6″). But, though I can’t prove it, it has the same feeling my pre-Model 10 does: that this was a gun carried and used daily by someone who relied on it, knew exactly what he wanted and why (like Earl Swagger), and made the changes he wanted without worrying about future collectors.
[1] “The most terrifying sound in the world is not the scream of a descending bomb nor the roar of a charging lion, but rather a click when you expected to hear a bang.” –Peter Hathaway Capstick
Art, damn it, art! watch (#40 in a series)
Sunday, September 22nd, 2013Yesterday was gun show day.
(I didn’t pick up anything, though I did see a couple of nice Savage Model 24s in .22 magnum/20 gauge on one guy’s table. They seemed reasonably priced, though I still couldn’t afford them right now.)
As our party was on the way out, we noticed a bunch of Austin Energy trucks off to one side of the expo center parking lot. That’s not unusual – the expo center is within sight of one of the major power plants – but there were also signs for something called “PowerUP”.
What is “PowerUP”, we wondered? It turns out that “PowerUP” is…
So I’m still not sure exactly what it is, beyond a performance that apparently involves linemen and bucket trucks. There was a Kickstarter for this project, too. $500 got you a reserved parking space and four reserved seats.
I’m intrigued by the description (and I also get a kick out of “Forklift Danceworks”); I might have gone to this if I hadn’t had other plans last night. (Of course, I would have had to wear my “Forklift Driver Klaus” t-shirt.)
They’re also doing the performance tonight, as well, but according to the Forklift Danceworks web site, they “sold out” both nights of the free performance, and don’t have any additional tickets available. Which sort of renders my gripe that there hasn’t been any publicity (that I’ve seen) for this null and void…
Obit watch: September 20, 2013.
Friday, September 20th, 2013Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.
–Captain A. G. Lamplugh (pulled from here)
No snark here.
David Riggs’s body has been recovered from a lake in China. Riggs crashed his plane on Tuesday “while performing a stunt in which the wheels of the aircraft grazed the surface to produce a skiing effect”.
An 18-year-old Chinese woman who was working as Riggs’ translator was also killed in the crash.
Why is this noteworthy here? Two reasons:
- Ah! Now I know why those planes looked familiar! (Okay, those were L-29s and that’s an L-39. But I’m still pretty sure that’s why.)
- And why did I recognize the L-39? Because I’ve written about it, and David Riggs, before.
Paraphrasing a famous quote, to lose your license once can be regarded as bad luck, to lose it twice smacks of carelessness.
Ellie Rucker.
Friday, September 20th, 2013Thank you for posting yesterday, Allison and Julie. Again, I am sorry for your loss.
For the record, here’s the obituary from today’s Statesman, which is not behind the paywall.
Yes! I miss that column to this day. If the Statesman really wanted me to pay for the paper, bringing back the restaurant recipe column would be a good first step.
I encourage my readers to consider making a donation to WFSC in memory of Ms. Rucker. In keeping with the policy of this blog, I plan to do so myself as soon as this week’s paycheck clears the bank.
“Any one who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.”
Thursday, September 19th, 2013There’s an interesting post over at the Cryptographic Engineering blog about Duel-EC.
The post itself is pretty wonky, but a couple of scattershot points:
Flaw #3: You can guess the original EC point from looking at the output bits.
…
Flaw #5: Nobody knows where the recommended parameters came from.
So does all of this amount to a backdoor? Quoth Matthew Green,
…including some kind of hypothetical backdoor would be a horrible, horrific idea — one that would almost certainly blow back at us.
You’d think people with common sense would realize this. Unfortunately we can’t count on that anymore.
(You know, I’m halfway tempted to start a Kickstarter for a truly random random number generator. Something based off atomic decay, perhaps. What’s stopping me is:
- I have no electronics design skills or ability. Of course, I could hire someone, but…
- I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t already done this.)
(Edited to add: You could just get your random numbers from here, of course, while you’re waiting for the revolution. Nothing wrong with that plan, is there?)
(Speaking of Big John von Neumann, I just finished Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe
Obit watch: September 19, 2013.
Thursday, September 19th, 2013Ken Norton, former heavyweight champion of the world and the man who broke Ali’s jaw.
Richard C. Sarafian, film and television director, perhaps most famous for Vanishing Point.
(He also directed the “Living Doll” episode of the original “Twilight Zone”; there’s a funny story in the LAT obit about that, which I won’t spoil here.)
Ellie Rucker has also passed away. This means little to anyone who didn’t live in Austin during the 1980s and early 1990s, but Ms. Rucker was the Statesman “consumer columnist”. This meant, in the pre-Internet/pre-Google days, that she answered questions from readers such as “Where can I find beeswax?”, ran handy household tips, and sometimes even mediated disputes between customers and businesses.
I always liked Ms. Rucker’s column, as did many of my friends. When she retired and was replaced by another writer, we continued to refer to that column as “Not Ellie Rucker”, in her honor.
(You’ll note that I didn’t link to Ms. Rucker’s actual obit. That’s not by choice; of course, the Statesman wants you to pay to read it.)
Noted.
Wednesday, September 18th, 2013…
Yes, that’s correct: the Statesman wants you to pay in order to read what is basically an advertisement for Trader Joe’s.
You don’t have to pay to read their article about Trader Joe’s confirming a North Austin (Arboretum) store, though.
(Does anyone other than myself and Mike the Musicologist remember Krispy Kreme, and how the local news media treated the opening of their first store here like it was the second coming of Christ?)
A brief loser interlude.
Wednesday, September 18th, 2013The Astros have reached the 100 loss mark for the third season in a row.
Projections all seem to be hovering around 107 losses this year.
This is intended to enrage you. (#5 in a series)
Wednesday, September 18th, 2013Back in April of 2012, I noted the convictions of five New Orleans police officers on charges stemming from the “Danziger Bridge” incident.
About that:
More from NOLA.com:
And yes, this is a direct result of the anonymous comments scandal that led to Letten’s resignation:
To be clear, I’m not enraged at the judge: I think he made the right decision, especially given the discovery of Karla Dobinski’s activities:
Ms. Dobinski is the third “anonymous” commenter. (Also: “taint team”. Ken White, call your office, please.)
I’m enraged at Letten, and at his office, for f—ing this one up. It looks like there will be retrials. I hope the defendants get a fair second trial. I also hope that Letten, and the other folks in his office responsible for this mess, face their own criminal trials, and receive appropriate punishment if they are found guilty of criminal acts.
Notes from the blotter.
Tuesday, September 17th, 2013I have written previously about Glafira Rosales, Knoedler & Company, the fake Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell paintings, and the guy in Queens who actually painted them.
Yesterday, Ms. Rosales pled guilty to “charges of wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion”.
I particularly like the “although her recommended sentence…” part. Ken White, you are doing some good in the world.
I have also previously written about the case of Robert Middleton, and the attempts to file murder charges against the person who burned him (leading to his death from cancer some years later).
From the HouChron:
After countless stops and starts, prosecutors Monday refiled a murder case against 28-year-old Don Wilburn Collins, who was age 13 when Middleton was set ablaze.
“We have located previously unknown witnesses and developed a considerable amount of new information regarding the heinous attack on Robert Middleton,” said Montgomery County Attorney J.D. Lambright, who last year was elected to his first term and assumed office Jan. 1.
Lambright claims that there’s “more than 50,000 pages” of new information. Further, since Lambright is claiming that the assault against Middleton occurred in conjunction with the alleged sexual assault by Collins, the charge is actually felony murder.
And if you want to bid on any of Jesse Jackson Jr.’s stuff – some of the stuff that he spent campaign funds to buy, and that got him convicted of a crime – go here.
Man, this is just compounding the embarrassment. I mean, you use campaign money illegally to buy crap – that’s bad enough. Then it comes out that you’re a Van Halen fan – that’s even worse. Then it comes out that you got taken when you were buying Van Halen memorabilia – how much worse can it get?